Fighting the Tide
by thawrecka
Summary: After Crooked Kingdom, a slice of Inej's new life as a sea captain. Written for the Yuletide challenge in 2018.


Written for Yuletide 2018.

When they boarded the small boat – barely larger than a garbage skip – it looked empty. No people above or hiding below. Just that rotten smell that no amount of cleaning could get out, of old rot, old sweat. The smell you get when people are left to sit in filth in small spaces for long periods of time, like fear and panic have sunk into the wood.

The captain started to panic when Inej told Specht to rip up the boards to look for hidden compartments. Yelling that he was only a humble fisherman, he wasn't hiding anything, he had children to feed...

Inej watched Nina loom over him, her considerable power turning the fisherman into something smaller, until he was kneeling under the weight of her regard. He still made panicking noises but didn't move to stop them. Inej nodded and got on with the job.

They opened holes in the floor and walls, tore open every compartment they could. For so long there was nothing that Inej almost started to feel guilty. The boat was that fisherman's livelihood. And yet, there was still the smell of his panic in the air – she knew that had to mean something hidden, deep beneath.

Then finally, they found something. What they found wasn't living people any more, just the rotting remains. Even Inej, with all she'd seen, had to recoil from it a little.

The fisherman started to yell and cry. He swore he hadn't known, that the business man had told him it was drugs, not people, he'd been trafficking. He swore it wasn't his fault.

Nina looked Inej in the eye, and Inej could tell that burning feeling was in her chest too.

"Whatever you do to him, I won't look," Inej said.

Instead, she looked at the rotting mess where people had been and started to clean. People deserved a decent place to rest, to be known in death and honoured by their people. They didn't deserve to be shut away like this.

#

They rendezvoused with another ship, for Nina's passage back to Ravka.

Nina didn't seem inclined to tell what she'd told the Captain of the other boat about her journey, and Inej wasn't inclined to ask. She was just happy to have seen her friend again, to see that she was still safe and alive, with enough purpose to keep her mind from dwelling too deeply on grief.

Nina smiled, though there was pain in it, and held her close before she readied to depart.

Put one hand to Inej's face and said, "Take care of yourself, Inej."

"I always do."

Nina moved away, and though Inej watched her move on to the other boat and sail away, her mind was already deep in thought about what she'd learned about who to go after next.

#

The bigwig was in a big boat. They followed it for weeks, stalking it over the seas. As carefully as they could, so the people running the other ship wouldn't panic and throw all their captives overboard.

Inej had already seen that kind of thing happen; she'd had to stop everyone on board _The Wraith_ from trying to go after the fleeing ship in favour of rescuing the frightened people sinking into the deep. It had been hard and dangerous, trying to rescue as many as they could in the dark of the night without losing any of their own. They'd rescued as many as they could, shivering wet on the decks, some of them crying tired under blankets as they huddled together, but as many as they could wasn't everyone; some had gone under the waves, too deep for Inej to catch.

She didn't really want to have to do that again.

Inej's plans were never as complicated as anything Kaz cooked up. She favoured the old fashioned techniques – the surgical strike of ambushing someone in their home, or the big hit of a cannonball at sea.

She could have used one of his plans now, though.

#

She knew they could make their move as they got close to the harbour.

They steered _The Wraith_ closer, close enough that the other ship would be able to feel her on their tail. Inej wanted them to feel haunted by their proximity, to know that escape was impossible.

The other vessel was prepared for them. They attacked – not with artillery but with water, steam rising from the waves to cover them. Inej was nearly blinded by the sudden fog. She was still learning to deal with the constant wetness of the air at sea, but this, this was like trying to see and move through a pool of water. Water collected on her skin, under her hair, and dripped down her neck underneath her clothes.

She knew how to stop the shiver before it could move her.

Without vision to guide her, she had to direct the ship by feel. Whatever Grisha their enemy had on board were whipping up the water, turning the solid decking beneath their feet treacherous.

She could hear the yells of people working in the harbour as they slipped and swayed closer to Ketterdam's solid edge. If she was lucky, they'd all know to get out of the way.

The water roared louder, drowning those other sounds out. Easier to think when she could barely hear any voice but her own. She yelled at her crew whatever orders they could hear.

And rammed their ship straight into the enemy.

The enemy boat crashed into the harbour, splintering and slicing the wood of an old timber jetty open with its sharp edge. All that remained was to board them.

She swung over, and somehow on that ship the air was even wetter. She closed her eyes and breathed wet through the fog. Tried to listen through the rush of water and let her ears guide her to where she needed to be.

There, the sounds of people sobbing. She shoved down and closer, until their tears were the only water she could hear. They were boxed up like cargo and she didn't have the strength to open all the shipping containers on her own. Luckily, she didn't have to. Some of her crew had followed her deep into the hold and set to work, wrenching the edges open to set people free. She watched people's eyes swing up to her, confused, as the light stabbed its way into the corners of the little areas they'd been caged in, at the way they clung harder to each other as they winced against the light.

"Go!" she commanded them. "Get away from this place."

At first it was only a trickle of people taking their chance, but then the rest understood their rescue and flooded past.

Only when she'd checked every container to make sure it was empty of human cargo did she turn to leave. She still had one thing to go after.

Up top, and the enemy captain was already escaping, taking the risk to jump onto the splitting jetty to escape her. He ran, right into the back of a slender figure in a dark suit.

Her lucky day. She'd recognise Kaz Brekker's body language anywhere. And what a body. As he turned to the man who'd been trying to flee her tender mercies, she could see he was as wet as she was, damp all the way down from the unruly waves. She smiled and knew he could feel her there. Watching him turn the cold power of his personality on that thoroughly defeated slave trafficker was an absolute pleasure.

#

After all the finer details had been dealt with and her own boat had been properly docked, she followed Kaz into one of his secret places: a dry apartment that just happened to have spare clothes to fit both of them. Almost as if he'd been waiting for her.

She was still damp all over, her hair and clothes clinging, wet, to her body. She looked across the small room, and Kaz was as damp as she was. He should have been diminished by it. But somehow the wet cling of his clothes to his form in the lamp-light made him seem larger in her estimation, almost overwhelming.

They were breathing in time with each other, deep and harsh.

She undid a button and he swallowed as he watched her. Her hands trembled as she moved to undo another. He made a sound, like he was in pain.

His eyes flinched away, and then he was undoing his own buttons, fingers slipping open his waistcoat as fast as he could. Would he let her see his pale skin?

"Kaz..."

She moved closer, so close it surely would not take effort at all to touch him.

"Turn around. It's too much."

But then he looked at her, and moved closer to kiss her, quick, soft lips against hers like he couldn't help himself. She knew better. She knew how much even a kiss asked of him. She tried not to touch her mouth in shock.

"It's too much," he said again.

She nodded, and moved back. Slipped away into the shadows, so he could choose not to see her if he wanted.

They changed in silence.

When she was finished, re-clothed and dry but for her hair, she looked again. The sounds of his breathing were still loud enough to almost be tangible. She moved closer, and in that small space an almost touch was as heady as a touch.

He took her hand and she was fire all over, burning like the lamp light that lit up the planes of his face. His breath was hot. He kissed her again one last time and pushed away.

She knew that to push any further against their limits would ruin the thing they were trying to build.

She stepped back, eyes still on him. "I'll see you around, Kaz Brekker."

Waited for his nod before she turned and walked away.

She'd be thinking of it again, late at night in her cabin. Until then, she still had work to do.


End file.
